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My blog has been changed to make it more appealing for those who have New England ancestors and want to see the area through photos. Things I’ll include are typical white New England churches, libraries showing their genealogical collection, historical societies, cemeteries, war memorials, in general, anything to do with history.

For four years I’ve blogged mostly about my personal genealogy in New England (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire), New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada. I still will, can’t forget my own roots.

Please check out the labels on the right side for articles. The header tabs at the top are a work in progress.

Reviewed by Patricia Kelleher (Department of History, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania)Published on H-Urban (December, 2006)

"Mitchell traces the establishment of Lowell's Irish community back to the arrival of Hugh Cummiskey, a labor foreman, and thirty of his charges who had walked from Charlestown to find work on a canal project which was designed to provide water power for the projected mill complex. Lowell's construction work attracted Yankee and Irish laborers throughout the 1820s. At first, Lowell's Yankee planners and officials did not perceive the small and highly transient Irish population as a permanent fixture within their enlightened enterprise. The Irish laborers threw up clusters of shanties for housing (paddy camps). Eventually, the number of women and children increased and a more established neighborhood, the "Acre," emerged. Living conditions were wretched but the authorities did not interfere with Irish folkways. Mitchell offers evidence that indicates that homeland regional loyalties remained strong among the laboring population, as did the use of the Gaelic language. While Mitchell's tenor is sanguine, the situation he describes is stark. The Irish were physically segregated, they were virtually excluded from millwork and, as the term "paddy camps" suggests, anti-Irish prejudice was endemic. However, Mitchell presents the 1820s to the early 1840s as an era of accommodation between the Yankee and Irish middle classes. For the Irish, middle class is a relative term indeed considering the modest resources commanded by that segment. The accommodation Mitchell perceives relates to a level of Yankee support and approval for Irish self-improvement projects such as temperance, for peaceful agitation for Repeal of the Union between Ireland and Britain and, most significantly, because of a compromise which ensured that Catholics would teach in the public schools set aside for Irish children."

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I've been a retired, quiet, genealogy fanatic for 27 years. It's a hobby I do for fun and to help others.
Why not use the Search My Blog feature (directly below) to put in some key words. If you wish to contact me, please write at: Barbara.trees4u@gmail.com.